recently question about beginner resistance at home

SHBoss1673
SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
recently, on my health and exercise blog, I was asked for some tips on what a beginner to the world of resistance training can do at home if they can't afford (or for some other reason don't want to join) a gym. Here is my response, please note, this is not an exhaustive list, there's plenty of things you can do that I didn't mention in here, but this should give people some good ideas to start with, without spending loads of cash on equipment.

initial question:

Do you have any suggestions for at home strength training routines?I have some 5 & 10 lbs dumbbells and a resistance training band. I found your post on MFP great …..I’m a fan!

my response:
5 and 10 lb dumbbells are good for certain specific things, but for others they may be to light, especially if you’re talking about strength training routines. I would find them acceptable for things such as lunges, triceps extensions, and front and side raises. I don’t think they would provide enough weight for things like squats, curls, presses, flys, overhead presses…etc. I believe that you probably would need more weight than that. On the other side of the coin, resistance bands, because of the nature of a band, are adjustable with weight, you can do all kinds of things with resistance bands including curls, seated flys, squats, standing presses, overhead presses, lateral pull downs just to name a few (google resistance band exercises and you’ll find tons of hits). Pretty much any routine you can do with a dumbbell or barbell you can do with resistance bands, the trick is to find something stable to use as the brace for the band. For any standing routine, just create a loop in the band and stand on it for more resistance. Also, don’t discount body weight routines, push ups, weighted crunches, planks, squat thrust push presses are a great combination routine if you’re short on time, squat jacks (a modified jumping jack from a 1/2 squat position) are an excellent lower body routine, 1 legged dead lifts (with weight), mountain climbers, russian twists for the core, dive bombers, wall sits are a good isometric activity that you can use as an active recovery period. As well as any number of plyometric routines (google plyometric exercises for more info). There’s no need to use a gym for resistance exercises, you can do most of it from home. If you splurge on a medicine ball (the heaviest you can find is better) and can hang a pull up bar, you can do even more (total of about 50 to 60 bucks and you have all you need). There are multiple things you can do with either one of those simple tools.
And don’t forget the age old sprint for lower body resistance. 3 sets of ten, 30 yard wind sprints are a great workout for anyone, beginner through advanced, but I’ll say this once, a sprint is not a 75% run, nor is it a 90% run, it’s all out, breakneck, as fast as your tired legs will carry you run, by number 5 you should be gasping, by 10 your thighs should be burning, by the last set you should be cursing the day you decided to exercise, if you aren’t then either you didn’t go 100% or it’s time to move on to something else.

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